Connor Jaeger, a two-time Olympic swimmer and silver medalist who grew up in Fair Haven, is now a development associate with Crow Holdings Development’s Montclair-based team. — Photos courtesy: Connor Jaeger/Crow Holdings
By Joshua Burd
You likely won’t hear Connor Jaeger go out of his way to bring up his career before commercial real estate. But the topic has been all but unavoidable in recent weeks.
The Monmouth County native, a development associate with Crow Holdings Development, is a former standout swimmer and two-time Olympian, having won silver at the 2016 Rio Games and medals at the FINA World Championships in 2013 and 2015. Understandably, those glory days have been something of a focal point for friends and colleagues since the Paris Summer Games kicked off late last month, especially with Team USA racking up 28 medals in swimming.
“It has been fun while the games have been going to have those additional conversations with people that know that I competed and to be talking times with people who don’t normally follow swimming,” said the 33-year-old Jaeger, who joined Crow Holdings’ Montclair-based team in 2022 after nearly six years with Toll Brothers City Living.
“So it’s exciting when something like that comes up and gives you a reason to chat about it.”
Still, it’s more than just a fleeting chance to revisit thrills and moments that most others could only imagine. Humble and introspective, Jaeger views his time as a swimmer as the foundation for a real estate career that began in 2016, citing the importance of being able to work with a team and being willing to “surround yourself with people who are better than you” as a means of reaching his full potential.
“I think that so much of my improvement as an athlete came because I was surrounded by people who were better than me,” he said, pointing to his days as a member of the University of Michigan’s legendary, highly competitive swim team. He added: “I believe that environment made me better, so I try to carry that with me and not be overwhelmed in those situations. You don’t seek comfort in areas where you’re the best or look better, just because it feels good.”
Jaeger was around 8 years old when he began swimming competitively in Monmouth County, going on to become a highly touted recruit at Rumson-Fair Haven High School. At Michigan, he was a 10-time All-American, three-time NCAA champion and two-time winner of the school’s Male Athlete of the Year distinction, among many other accolades — all while earning both a bachelor’s in mechanical engineering and a master’s in management.
But it was as a sophomore in 2012 when Jaeger qualified for the London Olympics, finishing sixth in the 1,500-meter freestyle and later recalling that he “was there to basically just soak it in.” In 2016, he had his sights firmly set on medaling at the Rio Games, a goal he achieved in the 1,500-meter freestyle while setting a new American record with a time of 14:39.48.
It was the pinnacle of his athletic career, but also the truest example of what it takes to get there.
“People only talk about the Olympics every four years,” he said. “But it’s not about what you do in that fourth year — it’s what you’re doing every day of those four years that’s going to make or break whether you get on that team or have that success you want.”
To be sure, Jaeger is invoking the famous Olympic slogan that adorns a wall in the University of Michigan locker room: “It’s not every four years, it’s every day.”
“That can be applied to anything,” said Jaeger, who retired from Team USA in 2016 to pursue his career in real estate. “These development projects are not done in a year … and it’s that same approach that you had to take in training, where you have to come in and try to get better each day, regardless of how far away you are from the next trial or games. You have to look at these development projects like big-picture, long-term goals that have to be attacked on a daily basis.”
Equally important are the lessons of teamwork that come from swimming — which Jaeger concedes is often thought of as an individual sport. Far from it, he said, citing the impact of when “everyone buys in to making each other better” even while competing with one another. Similarly, in real estate, “You really want to get to a scenario where everybody is benefiting from it, everyone can walk away from the project feeling some level of success and happiness about how it went so that everyone feels energized and wants to come back for the next project.”
Naturally, Jaeger has been locked in since the start of the Paris Olympics on July 26. And he did, of course, cheer on former teammates such as Katie Ledecky, now the most decorated U.S. female athlete in Olympic history, and other members of the U.S. Swimming team during its impressive run across dozens of events.
Those experiences are unparalleled, he said, especially when “you throw the Team USA cap on, with the stars and stripes, and you feel the support of the country behind you.” But equally if not more important was the support Jaeger felt from his hometown crowd in Monmouth County in late summer 2016, when he returned as a silver medal winner.
Well-chronicled at the time, that return included a crush of fans and a meet-and-greet at the Fair Haven Firemen’s Fair, an annual fundraiser.
“I’ll never forget the way I felt my local community rally behind me,” Jaeger said. “In fact, I think I was embarrassed about it at the time — maybe I didn’t feel like I deserved it or was intimidated by it. But now that I’m on the other side of it, and when I see other athletes qualify from Monmouth County or even anywhere in New Jersey, I feel the same sense of pride and desire to support those athletes the way that I felt I was supported.”
